Interview with Mikael Pettersson at Exelement, about what really slows sales teams down, and how the right structure makes all the difference.
Mikael, where do the customers you meet most often lose speed in the sales process, and why?
“I’d say many sales reps lose momentum the day after a good meeting. That’s usually where the follow-up structure breaks down. They trust they’ll remember, or assume the customer will reach out. But they often don’t. One simple tip: create a concrete task in your CRM system right after the call. That way, the follow-up doesn’t rely on memory, it’s in the system,” says Mikael Pettersson.
When there’s no consistent follow-up method, the sales process becomes unpredictable. A pipeline needs follow-ups as a natural, built-in part of the process.
“Set up reports in your CRM showing ‘accounts without activity in the last two months’. It’s simple but creates clarity and accountability. You immediately see where things have stalled,” says Mikael.
After sending the quote, many think the job is done, but that’s when it really starts.
Is there a particular stage where the sales cycle tends to get stuck?
“Yes, right after the quote goes out. Many think, ‘Now I’m done, and it’s up to the customer.’ But that’s exactly when real work begins. It’s about understanding what the customer needs to be able to make a decision.”
In practice, that means proactivity must be built into the sales process. Exelement often works with companies using tools like Salesforce, HubSpot or Marketo, but where the actual processes still live in email threads, Word documents and Teams chats.
“I had a client using Salesforce, but all approvals happened in Teams, quotes were stored in Word, and mailings went out from a separate system. No one really knew where each deal stood. It could take weeks to close a deal simply because everything was scattered across different tools.”
The cost of manual processes
When several people and departments work together without clear workflows, internal friction arises. And friction costs in both time and lost deals.
“It got to the point where they almost stopped pursuing smaller deals. There was too much manual work to make it worthwhile. The cost of lacking control over communication and internal processes is enormous. Money just flies out the window.”
How Exelement helps remove friction
For Exelement, the solution is rarely to replace systems, but to connect them, or optimise how they’re set up and used.
By using SyncCloud, Exelement’s own integration platform, or by optimising existing CRM flows, emails, approvals and sales data can be connected into one seamless process.
The result?
- Shorter sales cycles.
- Fewer misunderstandings.
- Clear ownership between sales, marketing and customer teams.
“When you build systems and processes around the actual cash flow – the customer journey from first contact to signed contract – you get both speed and control. It allows everyone to work in a simpler, more effective way,” says Mikael.
In the next part, Mikael Pettersson shares the three steps he would automate first, and how high-performing teams use the time they get back.
